Jeff Sessions’ Profound Failure to Understand the Overdose Crisis

[EasyAce]

By Jeffrey A. Singer
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/jeff-sessions-profound-failure-understand-overdose-crisis

Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke to a group of U.S. Attorneys in Tampa, Fla., last week, and demonstrated his ignorance about the root causes of the opioid overdose crisis.

“I am operating on the assumption that this country prescribes too many opioids,” Sessions said. “People need to take some aspirin sometimes.” A day earlier, Sessions told a gathering celebrating the birthday of President Ronald Reagan, “Sometimes you just need to take two Bufferin or something and go to bed.”

Bob Twillman, the executive director of the Academy of Integrative Pain Management, said, “That remark reflects a failure to recognize the severity of pain in some patients.” Twillman went on, “It further illustrates how out of touch parts of the administration are with opioids and pain management.”

I think “out of touch” is an understatement.

Sessions seems unaware that high-dose opioid prescriptions are down 41% since 2010, and that the majority of overdose deaths are due to heroin and fentanyl. He probably doesn’t know that the overdose rate from street fentanyl rose by 88% per year from 2013 to 2016; for heroin it rose by an average of 32% per year from 2010 to 2016. Yet it remained unchanged and stable for prescription opioids from 2009 to 2016.

What’s even more disturbing to me as a doctor is the attorney general’s demonstrated lack of compassion for patients suffering in pain . . . As long as policymakers remain as clueless as Sessions about the causes and remedies of the rising overdose death rate, look for the rate to continue to climb. The least they can do, though, is speak about this problem like adults.

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Note: Singer himself is a general surgeon.---EA.

[240B]

Jeff Sessions M.D.


Just take a powder boy...I say, I say, take a power. Put a clothespin on your finger boy...It will go away

[aligncare]

Agree with author. From everything we’re hearing, the opioid crises is not what one might think from reading headlines. The problem is in truth the overreaction to and stigmatization of pain relief. “What, can’t handle a little pain?” “You’re a worthless junky if you rely on pain medication.”

The problem is that government is inserting itself in a private, doctor-patient relationship. The problem is doctors afraid to help their patients to live a relatively normal life, afraid they’ll be identified by government as a “drug pusher,” possibly risking their license and livelihood. That’s a big deal. It is a problem brought on solely by those wanting a big government solution to everything local.

[Sanguine]

Agree with author. From everything we’re hearing, the opioid crises is not what one might think from reading headlines. The problem is in truth the overreaction to and stigmatization of pain relief. “What, can’t handle a little pain?” “You’re a worthless junky if you rely on pain medication.”

The problem is that government is inserting itself in a private, doctor-patient relationship. The problem is doctors afraid to help their patients to live a relatively normal life, afraid they’ll be identified by government as a “drug pusher,” possibly risking their license and livelihood. That’s a big deal. It is a problem brought on solely by those wanting a big government solution to everything local.

Totally agree with that @aligncare.

Sessions seems unaware that high-dose opioid prescriptions are down 41% since 2010, and that the majority of overdose deaths are due to heroin and fentanyl. He probably doesn’t know that the overdose rate from street fentanyl rose by 88% per year from 2013 to 2016; for heroin it rose by an average of 32% per year from 2010 to 2016.

[EasyAce]

Agree with author. From everything we’re hearing, the opioid crises is not what one might think from reading headlines. The problem is in truth the overreaction to and stigmatization of pain relief. “What, can’t handle a little pain?” “You’re a worthless junky if you rely on pain medication.”

The problem is that government is inserting itself in a private, doctor-patient relationship. The problem is doctors afraid to help their patients to live a relatively normal life, afraid they’ll be identified by government as a “drug pusher,” possibly risking their license and livelihood. That’s a big deal. It is a problem brought on solely by those wanting a big government solution to everything local.

@aligncare
The bold is where you really hit it on the proverbial head.

Marry that to inflated malpractice insurance, inflated in too large part because of what proves to be frivolous or nuisance litigation on too large a scale, and you
have a very large reason why the health profession is almost as unhealthy as the nation's political and other health.

[goodwithagun]

The opioid “crisis” isn’t from docs prescribing them, it’s from people choosing to use them for the effects. The people overdosing don’t have chronic pain, debilitating diseases, or lingering trauma pain. 

[Frank Cannon]

The so called Opioid Crisis is another in a long line of manufactured diversions our govt' comes up with to look like they are doing something when they are in fact a bunch of incompetent clowns.

[goatprairie]

Is there a number out there of people who've died from opioid overdoses? I haven't seen any.  Can we get an approximate number?
I remember the "homeless crisis" from the nineties where the homeless advocates claimed more than two million homeless. Some questioning person did an analysis and came up with less than one tenth of what the homeless advocates claimed.
So how many people are dying from opioids?  Anybody know?

[Oceander]

Is there a number out there of people who've died from opioid overdoses? I haven't seen any.  Can we get an approximate number?
I remember the "homeless crisis" from the nineties where the homeless advocates claimed more than two million homeless. Some questioning person did an analysis and came up with less than one tenth of what the homeless advocates claimed.
So how many people are dying from opioids?  Anybody know?

Over 20,000 in 2017

[goodwithagun]

Over 20,000 in 2017

And they would have died overdosing on something else if opioids never existed.

[goatprairie]

Over 20,000 in 2017

How much of an increase is this over previous years? And what is the demographic breakdown?

[goatprairie]

One is too many, but 20,000 is 0.00006667 % of the population. Three million is one percent. Three hundred thousand is one tenth of one percent.  So 20,000 is less than one in one thousand.  How do we propose to prevent these people from hurting/killing themselves?

[goodwithagun]

One is too many, but 20,000 is 0.00006667 % of the population. Three million is one percent. Three hundred thousand is one tenth of one percent.  So 20,000 is less than one in one thousand.  How do we propose to prevent these people from hurting/killing themselves?

.

[Oceander]

And they would have died overdosing on something else if opioids never existed.

Most of them probably wouldn’t.  Opioids are very powerful drugs.

[goodwithagun]

Most of them probably wouldn’t.  Opioids are very powerful drugs.

I’m not saying they aren’t powerful, I’m saying they would have found the next powerful drug. The drug is not the root of the problem.

[Oceander]

I’m not saying they aren’t powerful, I’m saying they would have found the next powerful drug. The drug is not the root of the problem.

No, with opioids the drugs are a big part of the problem.  Fentanyl is ludicrously dangerous.   

[Wingnut]

Pain is Gods way of saying you hurt yourself.  Slow down. Take it easy.   Better living thu pharmaceuticals is  not the answer.

[goodwithagun]

No, with opioids the drugs are a big part of the problem.  Fentanyl is ludicrously dangerous.

Of course they’re dangerous; again, I’m not denying that. Eliminating them won’t eliminate the problem. Do you know what the newest thing is? Urinating and deficating into a bucket and then covering. After a few days, the addicts come back and inhale the fumes for a high from the gasses. Those who would inhale their own $hit and pi$$ gasses aren’t doing so because we have these bodily functions. They will get their fix no matter what. If not opioids, then something else.

[EasyAce]

Pain is Gods way of saying you hurt yourself.  Slow down. Take it easy.   Better living thu pharmaceuticals is  not the answer.

Mr. Sessions, is that you?

Is the pain of broken limbs and no few headaches after you've been, say, T-boned by a reckless driver God's way of saying you should have taken the A train? 
Or is the doctor working to relieve your pain doing the devil's work?

[IsailedawayfromFR]

The guy has been stone deaf for some time.

Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, for example, said he was sure that Mr. Holder would be “a responsible legal officer and not a politician.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/us/politics/03holder.html

[GtHawk]

Pain is Gods way of saying you hurt yourself.  Slow down. Take it easy.   Better living thu pharmaceuticals is  not the answer.

Obviously you don't and haven't lived with long term debilitating chronic pain.......................physician heal thy self.